Marc Marquez (2nd) in Qatar with no chance of victory: “My race was against Martin”

On Saturday, Marc Marquez got everything right in the turbulent Qatar Sprint. After the race was stopped and restarted, he prevailed over Marco Bezzecchi – who crashed following contact with the Spaniard – and celebrated his 25th sprint victory. The Ducati factory rider went into the Grand Prix with a 49-point lead over Jorge Martin. Could he be celebrating as early as Sunday evening? Only with a win – and only if Martin failed to score any points.

Bezzecchi too fast, swap of positions with Acosta

Marquez got off to a strong start from second on the grid, but there was no getting past pole-sitter Bezzecchi. Raúl Fernández springing a surprise by overtaking the seven-time MotoGP World Champion. Whilst the two Aprilias pulled away, Marquez, in third place, took no risks. Pedro Acosta stuck to his rear wheel and snatched the lead from the world champion at Turn 15. Shortly afterwards, the KTM rider demonstratively let Márquez back past with a wave of his finger – just as he had done at Mandalika. The reason: tyre pressure, yet again.

A late charge saw Marquez move up to second place

After that, Marquez stepped up the pace. With fast 1:52-minute lap times, he was at times the fastest on the track and gained several tenths of a second per lap on Fernández. In the closing stages, he overtook the Trackhouse rider seemingly effortlessly on the start-finish straight. Marquez was unable to catch Bezzecchi, however, and the Italian took the win with a three-second lead.

Marc Marquez wurde in Katar für Platz 2 geehrt

Foto: Gold and Goose

“My strategy today was very clever. I just wanted to manage the race,” explained Marquez. “In the first five laps, it didn’t matter if anyone pulled away. My race was mainly against Martin.”

Topic of the week

World Champion Kimi Antonelli: record-breaker, heart-breaker, the Tifosi’s dream

With his third-place finish at the Mexican Grand Prix, Kimi Antonelli has become the youngest of the 36 Formula 1 world champions to date. The 20-year-old Italian is on a record-breaking run. The Tifosi are dreaming of Antonelli in a Ferrari.

Read More

TV Program

Live

Portimao: International Livestream

MotoGP World Championship

20.11.2026 - 09:55

Acosta let him past due to a tyre pressure problem. “I could see that I could ride even faster at that stage of the race, but I knew that riding like that would destroy the front tyre. In the end, third place was okay, but I saw that Fernández was running into trouble. You never know – so I went for it. Four more points.”

As Martin scored nine points in seventh place, Marquez now leads with 431 points and a 60-point advantage, whilst Bezzecchi trails by 74 points. In Portugal, Marquez has his second chance to clinch the title. After the Portimão Sprint, there are only 62 points left to be awarded. If Marquez wins the Sprint, he’ll be World Champion, regardless of what the Aprilia duo achieve. Second place will be enough, provided Martin doesn’t win the Sprint.